If this has been mentioned already - feel free to ignore. I would be interested in the source of this piece. If its true - it was a long time coming, I hope this is just an attack because of the press on PH's nazi uniform agro. TB's failing's started long before the deployment.

Daily Express, Thursday 20 Jan 05

The Queen has alunched a scathing attack on her own ministers over their treatment of British soldiers wounded in Iraq. She has vehemently denounced Tony Blair and his Cabinet for failing to visit heroes flown home after sustaining injuries in the war and its bloody 20 month aftermath.

She vented her anger after Princess Anne told her that most of the maimed and wounded have been abandoned by the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues. "Do you know, they've had no minister visit them at all since they fought in Iraq," she told one source who contacted the Daily Express. "It's a pity the Press don't write about it rather than some of the other things that go into the newspapers," the Queen added, in what aides regarded as aveiled reference to the fufore over Prince Harry's decision to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party. The Queen's anger was made known yesterday after the MoD was forced to admit under the new FOIA that 790 British troops have been evacuated back to hospitals in Britain with serious injuries since the conflict began on March 20, 2003.

Most have been treated at the Royal Centre of Defence Medicine in Selly Oak, Birmingham, but only one minister, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, has been to visit injured troops there - and that was in April 2003. Furious relatives have complained that ministers have ignored their wounded loved ones and tried to brush their plight under the carpet because of policital embarrassment about the numbers wounded. The Queen, who feels a deep sense of duty to servicemen and women who have risked their lives and livelihoods on their behalf. She has confided her concerns to courtiers and tohers who have met her in the past few weeks. Princess Anne alerted her to the problem after visiting wounded soldiers during a private visit to the hospital before Christmas. "She was there visiting a friend and then asked to go and see some of the injured soldiers," said one source. The Queen told courtiers that Anne had met amputees and was astonished to discover there had been no ministerial visits since 2003. "It was obvious that the Queen was angry about it by the tone of her voice and the set of her jaw," said one. Royal aides said Prince Edward went to the hospital in June and Prince Charles has also been drafted in to visit the wounded in the medical centre next week. "His visit was arranged a couple of months ago," said an official at his Clarence House office. But the PM has no plans to visit the maimed and injured in Birmingham, according to Downing Street, although officials pointed out that he had met wounded British soldiers in Iraq. Mr Blair was condemned last night by an injured soldier from his own constituency who suffered a serious knee injury while serving as a paramedic with the Parachute Regiment in the Iraq conflict in April 2003.

Cpl David Corrigan, 44, said he felt abandoned by the Army and his MP who had failed to contact him despite his complaints to Mr Blair's agent. "Tony Blair has not visited me despite my lifetime's service to the Army and despite the fact I was injured in action in Iraq - an injury which meant I could no longer serve on the front line and which meant my career as a paramedic on civvy street was finished," he said. Cpl Corrigan, who served in the Territorial Army for 22 years and was sent to Iraq as part of the initial invasion in February 2003, has undergone a series of operations that have failed to cure his knee injury and left him in severe pain. "It is like I have hit a brick wall. I submitted to Blair's constituency agent John Burton a 29-page dossier detailing what had happened to me and explaining the negligent treatment I'd received since then," he said.

Eight weeks later I received a letter of reply from the HofC to say they had received the dossier. That has been it. It is disgusting."

It's about time that someone of her standing shed some light on the disgusting treatment of the wounded war heroes by the current government

I think there is huge potential for the royals to score a real blow to the government, by actually visiting the wounded to show their solidarity with the armed forces. This would show Bliar in his true light!

Essentially, TCH claimed that the government's aim was to provide the best medical care possible, whilst giving the wounded peace and quiet. He went on to say that some of injuries were from RTAs and causes other than hostile action - presumably he thinks these hurt less or something.

See the other thread regarding the lack of Ministerial visits for details of how Lord Bach, Neue Arbeit's Defence Minister, tried to fob off more wuestions on this yesterday.

I wonder how much it would cheer them up to have politicians (plus the inevitable cameras and press pack) carrying out the duty visit? I'm not sure this isn't better left as family business, including colonels in chief, rather than encouraging those who don't display the discretion or sensitivity of the senior members of the royal family.

I wonder how much it would cheer them up to have politicians (plus the inevitable cameras and press pack) carrying out the duty visit? I'm not sure this isn't better left as family business, including colonels in chief, rather than encouraging those who don't display the discretion or sensitivity of the senior members of the royal family.

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Fully support you on this one Donny. It is good to see they are doing well and the Family of the Royal Signals doing its bit.

Of course this is better left to 'family', but not all patients are as well supported as those in the R Sigs article, for a variety of reasons.

The issue of ministerial visits is not that a succession of Bliar's lickspittles and the meeja should drool over patients, but that they should take an interest, so that they may at least gain a better understanding of what happens when they send soldiers off to do their bidding. One advantage of visits is that it gives hospital personnel an opportunity to point out difficulties, such as MoD's attempts to cut the funding for welfare services, or the state of the accommodation for relatives of listed patients, or the lack of facilities for relatives with small children and so on. Patients are usually given the option of being visited in these circumstances - it's not compulsory. Long after the newsworthy patients have gone, military patients will still be treated there, whether for cancer or whatever.

It is entirely possible for visits to be made without fuss, as demonstrated by the Princess Royal, though whether Neue Arbeit are capable of doing anything without direct benefit to themselves is in doubt.

Yes, and Well Done HRH TPA for raising it with her mother, according to that newspaper story. Not terribly surprised, if true.

Agent_Smith said:

...I think there is huge potential for the royals to score a real blow to the government, by actually visiting the wounded to show their solidarity with the armed forces. This would show Bliar in his true light!

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The redoubtable mrs hackle's reaction when I quoted this to her, and I take no personal responsibility for this at all, was that "If HMTQ was on her way to the hospital, Mr Blair would be overtaking her on rollerskates".

The issue of ministerial visits is not that a succession of Bliar's lickspittles and the meeja should drool over patients, but that they should take an interest, so that they may at least gain a better understanding of what happens when they send soldiers off to do their bidding.

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VB, I don't think we are disagreeing: Had the politicos done as you suggest (and I agree they should have taken an interest), and visited through a genuine interest in the welfare of those who have been injured, rather than seeking a bit of cheap publicity, then that would have been all well and good. But since that didn't happen, I think it's too late for them to go now without adding insult to injury. By all means criticise them for their failures, but for God's sake lets not inflict them and the press hacks on the guys in Selly Oak.

Quite understand why visits by major politicos would now cause more grief, but the constituency MPs of the injured ought to visit - irrespective of their stance on the conflict, or of the cause of the injury.

If nothing else it would give the MP an insight into the plight of the solidiery affected by their decisions.

Quite understand why visits by major politicos would now cause more grief, but the constituency MPs of the injured ought to visit - irrespective of their stance on the conflict, or of the cause of the injury.

If nothing else it would give the MP an insight into the plight of the solidiery affected by their decisions.

Would these visits be a problem?.

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I wouldn't have thought so, but the guys to ask are the ones on the ward.